'Night of the Living Dead' creator George A. Romero dies at 77

The Los Angeles Times has reported that director George A. Romero has passed away following a "brief but aggressive battle with lung cancer."

USA TODAY

Zombie movie maestro George A. Romero has died at age 77.

Filmmaker George A. Romero has died at age 77. In this 2009 photo, he poses on the red carpet ...more

Filmmaker George A. Romero has died at age 77. In this 2009 photo, he poses on the red carpet before a screening of 'Survival of the Dead' in Venice.

Andrea Merola, EPA

The Night of the Living Dead writer/director died Sunday in Toronto, his agent David Gersh confirmed to USA TODAY. Romero, who died from lung cancer, wrote on Facebook in May that he was fighting a respiratory infection that had grounded him from flying.

He died while listening to the score of The Quiet Man, one of his favorite films, with his wife Suzanne and daughter Tina by his side, his family said in a statement to the Associated Press.

After developing a cult following with his small-budget 1968 classic Night of the Living Dead, Romero put out plenty of zombie films, including Dawn of the Dead (1978), Day of the Dead (1985) and the more recent Land of the Dead (2005).

When his first movie about undead flesh-eaters came out, "nobody wrote about it in any kind of context at all," Romero told USA TODAY in 2010. "If anyone wrote about it, it was to say, 'You need to control these crazy filmmakers! Look what they'll do!' "

Decades later, however, Romero found that his work overappreciated.

"People write their thesis about it," he said. "I don't think it deserves half of the treatises about it."